My entire life, my father has been disabled and in a wheelchair. This work depicts a time my dad used an all-terrain chair to go hiking and overlooked a beautiful foggy landscape on top of a mountain. The importance of this piece to me is that it challenges the stereotype that disabled people are unable to perform activities like everyone else. They are just as capable of accomplishing things they want to do.
I want to promote a world in which this is viewed as a normal activity. It shouldn’t be shocking or unlikely for a disabled person to be able to do activities like this. That is why I titled the piece, 12 Geese, which are located in the eyeline of the figure. The apparent normality of the event is what makes the piece culturally relevant to me, as though it were saying this is a painting about 12 geese, and anything else should be viewed as normal. When disabled people are no longer cast as different, or incapable, that’s when we will see real change in the way they are perceived.